Magnifico
Approved user
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2015
- Messages
- 257
What is "Animal Bloat"?
As far as I know, the algorithm governing animal spawning isn't documented anywhere, but after a lot of observation I gather that it works something like this:
Why Animal Bloat is a Problem for Me
Animal bloat means that after a few days where most of my workers are busy, I can't get furs and leather from hunting. I prefer to leave two workers free to harvest fruit trees so I have a steady source of cider coming in to run the Training Blessing. Ideally, I'd like to hunt for fur and leather with these workers too. (If I have all my workers working, it can be literally weeks until I have enough workers free at the same time to take down a bear.) I am about to enter the industrial age, where most upgrades take a week or more, which means that due to animal bloat I will have to five or more days without being able to get fur and leather from hunting deer, foxes, and bunnies.
I worry that I may have shot myself in the foot by getting the level 3 of the Hounds technology ("Increases chance of finding bears and boars by 5% ") by making animal bloat happen faster. It seems perverse to have a technological upgrade be detrimental rather than beneficial.
I suspect that stags are supposed to be a bonus: "Hey! Free crowns!". But, because they contribute to animal bloat, rather than looking forward to one spawning, I dread their appearance a lot of the time.
Reasons Animal Bloat Might Conceivably Be a Intended
It's possible that animal bloat is not an unintended by-product of the spawn algorithm but a feature intended to encourage raiding by making it (if you do enough of it) the only reliable way to get fur and leather while your are in the throes of a long upgrade. It's also possible that there is supposed to be a trade-off between working on more upgrades and keeping workers free so that you can hunt the larger animals.
Both of these seem unlikely, though, because even the possibility of animal bloat is not suggested anywhere in the game. It's pretty clear that it takes two workers to harvest fruit trees and mines, so it's obvious that if you don't leave two workers free, you won't be able to get cider and metal that way until you free up more workers. Similarly, it's clear that you won't be able to hunt big game if you don't leave enough workers free. But it's very definitely not clear that you need to leave at least three workers during a long upgrade if you want to be able to get fur and leather by hunting for the entire duration of the upgrade.
Why Animal Bloat is a Problem for Nexon/BHG
For players in the later ages, where upgrades take a long time, there is not a lot of incentive to log in while they are being built. Harvesting fruit trees and mines provides one reason, but only every couple of hours. You want a game like this to be "sticky", with players logging in frequently and chatting with allies, donating troops, and, conceivably, getting impatient enough to spend crowns to finish early. Since animals spawn more frequently than mines and fruit trees refresh, getting rid of animal bloat so that hunting is always an option would help keep people logging in more often.
Suggested Fixes
As far as I know, the algorithm governing animal spawning isn't documented anywhere, but after a lot of observation I gather that it works something like this:
- The game tracks last time you have spawned a bear, boar, or stag. Either you just automatically get one after X hours since you last one appeared, or the chance of one spawning gradually increases until you are guaranteed to get one after a certain period of time (24 hours?).
- Except possibly with an Animal Blessing active, you can't naturally have more than one bear at a time.
- Animals take up an amount of "space" equal to the number of workers required to hunt them. There is a hard limit of something like 16 spaces worth of animals.
Why Animal Bloat is a Problem for Me
Animal bloat means that after a few days where most of my workers are busy, I can't get furs and leather from hunting. I prefer to leave two workers free to harvest fruit trees so I have a steady source of cider coming in to run the Training Blessing. Ideally, I'd like to hunt for fur and leather with these workers too. (If I have all my workers working, it can be literally weeks until I have enough workers free at the same time to take down a bear.) I am about to enter the industrial age, where most upgrades take a week or more, which means that due to animal bloat I will have to five or more days without being able to get fur and leather from hunting deer, foxes, and bunnies.
I worry that I may have shot myself in the foot by getting the level 3 of the Hounds technology ("Increases chance of finding bears and boars by 5% ") by making animal bloat happen faster. It seems perverse to have a technological upgrade be detrimental rather than beneficial.
I suspect that stags are supposed to be a bonus: "Hey! Free crowns!". But, because they contribute to animal bloat, rather than looking forward to one spawning, I dread their appearance a lot of the time.
Reasons Animal Bloat Might Conceivably Be a Intended
It's possible that animal bloat is not an unintended by-product of the spawn algorithm but a feature intended to encourage raiding by making it (if you do enough of it) the only reliable way to get fur and leather while your are in the throes of a long upgrade. It's also possible that there is supposed to be a trade-off between working on more upgrades and keeping workers free so that you can hunt the larger animals.
Both of these seem unlikely, though, because even the possibility of animal bloat is not suggested anywhere in the game. It's pretty clear that it takes two workers to harvest fruit trees and mines, so it's obvious that if you don't leave two workers free, you won't be able to get cider and metal that way until you free up more workers. Similarly, it's clear that you won't be able to hunt big game if you don't leave enough workers free. But it's very definitely not clear that you need to leave at least three workers during a long upgrade if you want to be able to get fur and leather by hunting for the entire duration of the upgrade.
Why Animal Bloat is a Problem for Nexon/BHG
For players in the later ages, where upgrades take a long time, there is not a lot of incentive to log in while they are being built. Harvesting fruit trees and mines provides one reason, but only every couple of hours. You want a game like this to be "sticky", with players logging in frequently and chatting with allies, donating troops, and, conceivably, getting impatient enough to spend crowns to finish early. Since animals spawn more frequently than mines and fruit trees refresh, getting rid of animal bloat so that hunting is always an option would help keep people logging in more often.
Suggested Fixes
- This is not my preference, but if animal bloat is indeed working as intended, it should be spelled out somewhere, e.g. a tip on the loading screens that says "Keep workers free to harvest fruit trees and gather metal from mines! Keep even more free to hunt big game!"
- Make it so that two space worth of animals (one fox or deer, or two bunnies) can always spawn if size 3+ animals are taking up the rest of the animal spaces.
- Add a technology or change an existing one (Hounds, level 3?) to reduce the numbers of workers required to hunt big game by 1. This would let players take down a stag with two workers and thereby prevent animal bloat. It would still be somewhat of a trade-off between being able to hunt bears and boars consistently or keeping more of your workers building upgrades.
